Minn Kota i-Pilot

[LazyBrewer]

Anyone here have experience, good or bad, with Minn Kota's i-Pilot? I'm seriously thinking of upgrading the head on my Minn Kota PowerDrive 70 trolling motor. The videos I've seen look pretty amazing for use on my local coastal lakes. The Spot Lock looks useful for fishing in general, and particularly so for pulling crab pots in the Siuslaw. The Autopilot, cruise control and iTracks features seem to make trolling much easier.

 

[rogerdodger]

I love mine, installed the 12V/55# saltwater version on the front of our 16' PB about 4 years ago, no problems. Our boat is fairly light and gets pushed around on the Siuslaw by boat wakes and wind, being able to troll with it pulling from the front was a game changer. The electronic anchor works good, especially on Siltcoos for casting near shore. For trolling (or slowly moving along the shoreline while casting), it is great if you set it to hold the course but not the same exact path, so when you get pushed off line, it doesn't try and take you back to that exact path, it just adjusts to keep you going the same direction. We definitely use it to tend crab pots down low on the Siuslaw when the tide isn't moving too fast.

 

[LazyBrewer]

Thanks for the feedback, Roger! I originally started looking into this basically for trolling, and then it hit me how it would help with pulling crab pots. I'll have my wife with me most of the time on the river, and she's scared to death of driving the boat, so the Spot Lock will make it easy for me pull the pots.

I emailed Minn Kota over the weekend, and had a reply at 5:32 am this morning, followed up with three other replies to questions within a couple hours. Man, the folks at Minn Kota are responsive! Those are the kind of companies I want to do business with

 

[rogerdodger]

the e-anchor works great for tending pots, pull up to the pot, hit the Spot Lock and while you are pulling it up and sorting the crab, it keeps you from drifting OFF with the current...

 

[LazyBrewer]

Received my Minn Kota PowerDrive head upgrade the other day. I preformed the upgrade yesterday, and it only took about 15 minutes, and was easy, overall. Everything seems to be working fine with the controls on the Bluetooth remote, as well as using an app on my phone. Once the coastal rain subsides a bit, I'm hoping to get out on the water and really dig into the features of the i-Pilot upgrade.